VORTEX

Vortex emerges from the Emerging Latam programme, which in recent years has given visibility at Swab to new voices from Latin America. In this new phase, the project broadens its scope to bring together emerging local and Latin American projects, building bridges between two territories shaped by cultural landscapes formed through a constant exchange of influences, resonances and reinventions.

Curated by Lena Solà Nogué, a Catalan curator based in Mexico, Vortex proposes a model of shared occupation: six spaces at the fair will be co-inhabited by twelve young galleries, six from each region. Rather than presenting two distinct scenes, the programme is conceived as a shared and temporary territory where practices, experiences and ways of working can meet, shift and mutually contaminate one another.

The projects brought together stem from diverse interests, but share an attention to the ways in which we build relationships with territory, memory, the body and communities. Ritual emerges as a form of dissident knowledge and resistance; bread and food-related practices as relational devices; transformation as a permanent state; and the circulation of images, objects, voices and knowledge as forms of transmission. From painting, sculpture, ceramics and graphic practices to digital languages and contemporary technologies, the projects question established ways of producing, representing and inhabiting the present.

In this context, exchange is understood not only as the circulation of artworks, but also of resources, knowledge, strategies and affects. The practices brought together recover ancestral and domestic forms of knowledge and explore channels of transmission ranging from *gossip* and language to rituals, digital gestures and other forms of situated knowledge. Grounded in territories, experiences and specific ways of relating to the environment, the projects examine the relationship between the material and the immaterial, between physical and digital territories, and between the human and the more-than-human, as well as the ways in which identity, memory and representation are transformed as they move between different contexts and social structures.

Through this shared occupation, Vortex becomes a meeting point for artists whose interests and trajectories circulate between local spaces and Latin America. The project seeks to generate cultural networks for sharing resources, concerns and strategies, and to strengthen the ties between both scenes.

Trastienda Machete Galería + TAT ARA

Trastienda Machete Galería (Cuidad de Mexico)

Trastienda Machete is a contemporary art platform based in Mexico City, dedicated to supporting emerging and mid-career artists through a program that engages with both local and international contexts. Founded in 2014 and operating independently since 2022, the gallery foregrounds material research, craft-based practices, and critical approaches to territory, ecology, memory, and social structures. With women comprising approximately 80% of its roster, Trastienda Machete remains committed to amplifying historically underrepresented voices and generating sustained dialogue between artistic practices, cultural contexts, and global audiences.

Artist: Tania Reza

View the catalogue here.

TAT ARA (Barcelona)

TAT ARA is gallery space that gives visibility to and connects projects across art, design, and ecology. It hosts critical, experimental, and research-based practices. It is a space sheltered from the system, a place to connect, generate friction, and build networks among people, communities, and practices. A cultural space open to the public for exhibitions, production, reading, debate, listening, conversation, and research.

Artist: Guus Vandeweerd.

View the catalogue here.